Hilton Garden JDL meet 4.90

[trayoates]

From a meet 2-2-13, video shows my warmups as well as all bars minus 3 attempts at 5.05.
Progression:
4.30 (14'1")
4.45 (14'7")
4.60 (15'1")
4.75 (15'7")
4.90 (16'1")

any advice is welcome. im a senior in high school, 175 lbs. 6'1". the pole used for 4.30 is a 15'7" 180 Spirit holding at 14'... pole for all the rest is 15' 190 carbon pacer

[trayoates]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fmM1dSorUE

[altius]

Difficult to see with these shots. Three things stand out - you should not be opening at 4.30!! You are still allowing the left leg to flex early and the timing of the shoulder drop - along with your head position in the inversion - need tidying up.

[CoachEric]

You're letting the pole tip drop far too low before you begin your plant motion, and your left hand is going with it. It causes you to have a longer plant path, which prevents full extension at takeoff and forces you to decelerate while you plant.

To fix this, you need to change the way you carry the pole. Tuck your left elbow under the pole so that the elbow is pointed down and the left forearm is closer to the body, and cock the wrist up so that you are supporting the pole with the palm of the hand, rahter than gripping the pole tightly with a straight wrist. Control the pole drop with your right hand by allowing the hand to travel back behind your torso. It should slide up behind you as if you are going to try to touch your armpit with your top hand.

This will make it easier for you to control the pole tip, and it will shorten the distance that your left arm has to travel to plant, resulting in a higher plant and more active takeoff. The pole tip should cross eye level as you hit your left to begin your plant. If you time up this action, it will make your feet more active in the last 3 steps, you won't takeoff under as much, and you will be able to jump of the ground instad of taking off flat.

You can practice this with slow motion/walking plant drills and approach runs on the track.

Are you using a 6 step mid mark?

[altius]

CoachEric - the sad thing is that the issues you raise were pointed out before Xmas and have not been resolved. And this with an enthusiastic talented and ambitious young vaulter. So you advise him to do walking plant drills to learn how to control his pole. You are right but this should have been done four years ago when he first began to vault and now all he should need is to include such drills as part of his warm up - to refresh but not to learn. And it is difficult to get value from basic drills in the middle of a competitive phase because the athlete will inevitably revert to old movement patters under the pressure of competition.

Unfortunately I still see examples like this which suggest that some coaches are making little effort to come to terms with even the most basic elements of modern technique - such as how the pole should be controlled into the box. i realise that this will upset a lot of folk but they should step back and consider my adage "A coach may have a thousand careers but an athlete only has one" . Trite it may be but surely we always make sure to do everything we can to optimise that athlete's career -that is if we want to call ourselves - "A coach".

I understand that the process of becoming an effective coach takes time and study - it took me over thirty years -but then I am a slow learner - and I did not begin to learn about modern technique until I met Petrov in 1985. But that was nearly 30 years ago - Now, with abundant information and great film of modern technique available at the push of a button, there is no excuse for not understanding the key issues and setting out to teach them from the beginning. It is infinitely easier to get it right at the start than to continually deal with technical problems that were allowed to develop in the early stages.

However what I sense is that all over the USA there are still pockets of coaches who are happy to judge their performance on the basis of success at state or even regional level, coaches who are absolutely confident in their own ability and who have not the slightest interest in exposing themselves to the ideas of others -even if it means that they do not help their athletes fulfil their potential. Of course I must point out that I am well aware that there are lots of good coaches around the country - I have met many of them and come to know about others through pvp - unfortunately in a country where every high school has a track program there are not enough to go round. This is where those who run clinics become critically important, but unless these folk are willing to continually question their methods and look to improve what they are doing - instead of sitting in their comfort zone - then many youngsters will never fulfil their potential.

So those of us that have a little time spend some of indulging in what I can only call "black magic coaching", trying to help kids as best we can through this particular site. Anyone who bothers to follow this particular section is well aware that many of the issues that are dealt with are absolutely fundamental and are much more related to basic teaching than they are to coaching. This should not be necessary in this day and age.